In fabricating disk drives, such as energy assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) disk drives, it may be necessary to align and bond components. For example, in conventional EAMR disk drives, a laser provides energy used to heat the media for magnetic recording. The laser typically takes the form of a laser diode. The laser diode may be desired to be aligned with a waveguide on the slider and bonded with the slider.
FIG. 1 depicts a conventional method 10 for aligning a conventional laser diode (or substrate on which the laser diode resides) and a slider. FIG. 2 depicts a conventional EAMR head 50 during fabrication using the conventional method 10. FIG. 2 depicts a plan view of the slider 60 and laser 70. The slider 60 and laser 70 include conventional alignment marks 62 and 72, respectively. Also shown are the laser output 74 on the laser and the corresponding laser spot 76 on the slider once alignment has been completed. The slider includes a waveguide 64 which is to be aligned to the laser spot 76.
The slider 60 and laser 70 are aligned using alignment marks 62 and 72 as well as the laser output 66 from the slider, via step 12. Typically this process includes aligning the alignment marks 62 on the laser 60 with the alignment marks 72 on the slider substrate 72. Thus, a coarse alignment may be achieved. However, this coarse alignment is typically insufficient to align the laser spot 76 with the waveguide 64. Once the coarse alignment is performed, therefore, the laser output 66 is monitored. The laser output 66 outputs light from the laser 60 that has traversed the waveguide 64 to the ABS and returned to the back side of the slider 60. When the energy from the laser output 66 is a maximum, alignment in step 12 is completed.
Once alignment has been achieved, the slider 60 and laser 70 are bonded together, via step 14. Typically, step 14 includes heating the laser 70 and/or slider 60 to reflow the solder pads (not shown in FIG. 2). Mechanical and electrical connection is made between the substrates 60 and 70 by solder pads, which have been reflowed together.
Although the conventional method 10 may function, the method 10 may be problematic. Alignment between the laser spot 76 and the waveguide 64 may be difficult and time consuming to achieve. Thus, production and/or yield of the conventional EAMR head 50 may be adversely affected. In addition, back reflections from the waveguide 64 to the output 74 of the laser may damage the laser 70. Thus, performance and reliability of the conventional EAMR head 50 may suffer. Some conventional EAMR heads 50 cover the surface of the conventional slider 60 that faces the conventional laser 70 with an antireflective coating (ARC) layer. Although this may mitigate issues due to back reflections, manufacturability of such a conventional EAMR head 50 may still suffer
Accordingly, what are needed are improved methods and systems for improving manufacturability of EAMR disk drives.